One feature that's been introduced is the package.sets (we're all familiar with a couple --system-- --world--) so the devs expanded and gave us a new /etc/portage/sets directory where we can add our own package sets.

mc works on the console and makes file management a lot easier - when restoring backups and such - drag-n-drop

qtwriter provides a nice tabbed notepad - makes it easy to edit multiple config files
sylpheed looks like outlook express/live mail so makes it easy to transition to it
spacefm is another qt4 based app that simply works better then qtfm does
tinymount because you need to mount flash drives

Of the system apps, I've added mlocate since it makes it easier to find files at times - very important when you brain freeze on something.

Do I really need to explain Firefox and flash or ntfs3g? Didn't think so.

Why fluxbox instead of (insert favorite wm)?

Minimal deps, looks decent and has straight forward sytax for the config files that makes them easy to edit as needed. For example, I dislike the white bg black fg in xterm (default colors stink) and usually add -fg black -bg yellow to the xterm command entry. Gives me yellow text on black that's much easier on the eyes. Still haven't figured out how to get larger fonts though and I need em. Oh well at least I can always drop screen rez to see things but once I solve that problem, I'll be in turtle pond.

I've actually pulled a few from this list, mainly duplicate features such as qmmp - prefer it for music playback since it doesn't lose my PL everytime I close it unlike vlc and as I don't use the fbpanel (not even sure what it offers) I've pulled it from the list. I have it added to my system due to playing with fvwm (tweaking the config) as it does serve a purpose there but fluxbox has a nice taskbar, so I see little reason to include it.

You're making a lot of specific preference choices here, some of which are not basic, there are other basic things missing; I don't see how this package set is any different from just sharing someone's world file.

Independent of the discussion whether certain packages should be "basic" or not, I am not convinced that "sets" is a better place for this than the worldfile or as a "virtual/my-basics" package with dependencise.
The main point of sets is that e.g. you can (re-)emerge them with one command (and maybe in future versions of portage do some set operations with them like intersecting or subtracting). Thus, for instance, it is more convenient to have sets like @toolchain, @my-firefox-extensions, @my-whatever-program-plugins because it can be necessary in some situations (change of a major toolchain component, change of firefox-extensions-path, change of plugin-path) to reemerge all these packages in such a set.

All:i posted this in the chat forum instead of the portage/programming in order to open discussion - good/bad/indiferent. So far, the only discussion I've see is NIH syndrome. Why, whats wrong with openning a discussion about a feature being introduced by the devs? Where's the choice given to everyone else who may actually be interested in. Someone who's responsible for maintaining multiple systems. I can see a package set offering a useful way of standardizing the builds of all the systems as it makes it far easier to use a purposeful name (db-server/webserver/mail-server) to deal with things.

Neddy: If you use this package.set, you don't install anything but this. Yep, I'm planning on this for my builds as the basic installation. It provides what people have come to expect in the way of basic functionality OOBE (out of box experience) on Windows. Web, email, media playback, networking, notepad and Windows Explorer. You also need the automount feature (basic feature of windows now days) plug-n-pray even today but it's got to be there. did I miss anything that's included by MS in a clean install? If so, point it out as I'm not aware of it.

What you'd do in this case would be follow the guide up to (prepare the disks, extract the tarball, extract the portage snapshot, copy over networking info (resolv.conf) edit make.conf and copy over the files with this package.set (package.use, license.accept, keywords and the package.set) into the correct locations and then simply emerge @???. It'll pull in the extra deps (it's by no mean comprehensive but does provide the format for them to edit it to suit their needs). Funny thing is, those build time tests I was discussing in portage & kernel. this was the package.set I used to do them. Worked great because I didn't have to remember what packages I used for the test build and didn't have to come up with a script to do it when my script.fu is non-existent. I can copy with the best of them but understanding? Not on you broom. So following the guide in loving detail is not what this was all about though if you take the time to look at the features it brings, you soon realize it's pretty close to what a clean Windows install includes. Mail Web Explorer Media Player and Notepad. Remember this is all MS includes in Windows though I guess you could include Freecell, Solataire, Spider and Mahjongg along with Chess now days - would pysol qualify? it's got all the card games covered so you're matching up to XP at least. Only other game needed to duplicate anything from WinXP prior is mine sweeper - I haven't looked but suspect there's at least one for x11 (not gnome/kde). Pretty good start or you can go on and add libreoffice, Caligra, Koffice, kdepim and all it's deps, gnome with all it's faults and anything else with a package available after understanding what you want/need.

TomWij: I know Gentoo is about choice but I've asked this question in all seriousness, where are the stage2 tarballs? That's my choice to start from an absolute minimal installation. The only thing I want to add is the kernel, boot loader and networking tools if needed. Everything else goes in after I'm on the live-system. Built it that way many a time and prefer it because it's smaller, faster and I can get to a console on the live system in about an hour and that's on an Athlon 950 T-bird with 1GB of memory. Think about it, the stage2 tarball was half the size of the stage3 as it only included the bare minimum needed to get to a console and boot. It did not include networking, filesystem tools or much of anything else as that was all covered in the install guide because once you had that, you had a working system. Bare bones of course but you could be well satisfied that you'd actually accomplished something.

The next step was to decide where you wanted to go and I have to ask what different between a profile and a package.set? Choice. The Profile (defualt) is already set for you instead of letting you choose. That's just one of the reasons I prefer a stage2 as I get to decide just how little extra gets installed. As an example, by starting from a stage2, I've found it funny many times that some GLSA involving a package I had installed was due to a dependency that I didn't install (kitchen sink syndrome) include it and everything else, the same as debian. I don't laugh about them as often due to the default profiles being set and required to install Gentoo now days. Sorry folks but I'm a big boy and will make my own decisions, which is why I'd love to see a return of the stage2 tarballs. I don't care if they're not supported so long as I have access to them again because it is about choice, my choice.

All: From what I'm seeing you don't feel this topic warrants any kind of discussion and are trying to tell me to shut up and go home. Wrong answer and attitude. It does warrant discussion as some devs thought it made sense to spend the time/effort to develop it. Now we have to live with it and see what kind of feeling the rest of the community has about it.

Does it work? that's the first question. Is it useful? If so in what manner? I can already see it as a selling point to businesses. Keep in mind companies tend to standardize on many things and software is just one of them. How about being a small business that offers Gentoo with some pretty standard packages that they support? Wouldn't a package.set like this be a blessing to them? I think so because it gives them a way to control support issues with a standard configuration that can be applied to any hardware the pacakges are ported to. How about providing this on systems that started life as WinCE devs? I've looked at some PC's like the R-Pi that fit into a single electrical box. Nothing for an end-user to screw up and not much more then the R-Pi systems. Then you have more ARM based offerings coming out. Smart Terminals anyone? Doesn't matter any more what hardware a company uses since they can run the same software across every system they buy.

On a related note, a system admin could create a standard set of packages for various departments and functions like dbserver, webserver, mailserver, proxysever, accounting, shipping/receiving and such. Once again, a company is more likely to buy into using linux if you can provide a standard set of packages. What other reasons can you think of to use a package.set? Expand and explain your arguemnts in a paper with at least 5000 words folks and turn them in two weeks from now.

It all works as you describe - anyone can define a set for whatever they find useful, hence my tongue in cheek @debian.

To make it useful the way you describe, you would need a special package to set up make.conf and friends, since if your target users are comfortable doing this for themselves, they won't have any problems with Gentoo._________________Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

All:i posted this in the chat forum instead of the portage/programming in order to open discussion - good/bad/indiferent.

We're fine with that.

FastTurtle wrote:

So far, the only discussion I've see is NIH syndrome.

Hello, Neddy and I are devs and you're talking on the Gentoo forums, how can this be NIH?

FastTurtle wrote:

Why, whats wrong with openning a discussion about a feature being introduced by the devs?

Nothing.

FastTurtle wrote:

Where's the choice given to everyone else who may actually be interested in. Someone who's responsible for maintaining multiple systems. I can see a package set offering a useful way of standardizing the builds of all the systems as it makes it far easier to use a purposeful name (db-server/webserver/mail-server) to deal with things.

That's indeed a possible usage.

FastTurtle wrote:

Neddy: If you use this package.set, you don't install anything but this. Yep, I'm planning on this for my builds as the basic installation. It provides what people have come to expect in the way of basic functionality OOBE (out of box experience) on Windows. Web, email, media playback, networking, notepad and Windows Explorer. You also need the automount feature (basic feature of windows now days) plug-n-pray even today but it's got to be there. did I miss anything that's included by MS in a clean install? If so, point it out as I'm not aware of it.

Please note though that most people don't come to Gentoo for OOBE; and those that do, may not want the same set of applications that you pick. As for what's missing; that would be too much to list, try enumerating all the executables on a Windows install.

FastTurtle wrote:

TomWij: I know Gentoo is about choice but I've asked this question in all seriousness, where are the stage2 tarballs? That's my choice to start from an absolute minimal installation. The only thing I want to add is the kernel, boot loader and networking tools if needed. Everything else goes in after I'm on the live-system.

Ask the release engineering team, though there may be a chance you need to build it out of a stage1 tarball or even using bare scripts.

FastTurtle wrote:

Built it that way many a time and prefer it because it's smaller, faster and I can get to a console on the live system in about an hour and that's on an Athlon 950 T-bird with 1GB of memory.

I just do a quick install and I'm on the live system in a few minutes.

FastTurtle wrote:

Think about it, the stage2 tarball was half the size of the stage3 as it only included the bare minimum needed to get to a console and boot. It did not include networking, filesystem tools or much of anything else as that was all covered in the install guide because once you had that, you had a working system. Bare bones of course but you could be well satisfied that you'd actually accomplished something.

The longer it takes to get to a live system where you can start making choices, the longer it takes to accomplishing less.

FastTurtle wrote:

The next step was to decide where you wanted to go and I have to ask what different between a profile and a package.set? Choice. The Profile (defualt) is already set for you instead of letting you choose. That's just one of the reasons I prefer a stage2 as I get to decide just how little extra gets installed.

I picked my a profile and I didn't do stage2, this is false.

FastTurtle wrote:

As an example, by starting from a stage2, I've found it funny many times that some GLSA involving a package I had installed was due to a dependency that I didn't install (kitchen sink syndrome) include it and everything else, the same as debian.

How much more off topic are you planning to go? Of course they do GLSA regradless of USE flags. It is a waste of effort to sort this out...

FastTurtle wrote:

I don't laugh about them as often due to the default profiles being set and required to install Gentoo now days.

This makes no sense. You don't need to use them and you can pick whichever you like.

FastTurtle wrote:

Sorry folks but I'm a big boy and will make my own decisions, which is why I'd love to see a return of the stage2 tarballs.

There's no relation between stage and decisions.

FastTurtle wrote:

I don't care if they're not supported so long as I have access to them again because it is about choice, my choice.

Your choice is weird, because all of what you said can be done on a stage3.

FastTurtle wrote:

All: From what I'm seeing you don't feel this topic warrants any kind of discussion and are trying to tell me to shut up and go home.

You're suggesting to use package.set for something the developers did not write it for as well as in a way that no user will see interest in it, I wouldn't be surprised.

FastTurtle wrote:

Wrong answer and attitude.

Talking down on people will get you nowhere.

FastTurtle wrote:

It does warrant discussion as some devs thought it made sense to spend the time/effort to develop it.

Discussion is fine. nv has already listed the main point why developers have made this.

FastTurtle wrote:

Now we have to live with it and see what kind of feeling the rest of the community has about it.

It's been there for some time already.

FastTurtle wrote:

Does it work? That's the first question.

Yes, otherwise you wouldn't be able to use it.

FastTurtle wrote:

Is it useful?

Depends on how you use it.

FastTurtle wrote:

If so in what manner?

As said above, nv has already listed the main point.

FastTurtle wrote:

I can already see it as a selling point to businesses. Keep in mind companies tend to standardize on many things and software is just one of them. How about being a small business that offers Gentoo with some pretty standard packages that they support? Wouldn't a package.set like this be a blessing to them? I think so because it gives them a way to control support issues with a standard configuration that can be applied to any hardware the pacakges are ported to.

Possible, but it's not the only way to accomplish this.

FastTurtle wrote:

How about providing this on systems that started life as WinCE devs?

Try to suggest it to them and see how it goes.

FastTurtle wrote:

I've looked at some PC's like the R-Pi that fit into a single electrical box. Nothing for an end-user to screw up and not much more then the R-Pi systems. Then you have more ARM based offerings coming out. Smart Terminals anyone? Doesn't matter any more what hardware a company uses since they can run the same software across every system they buy.

Depends on the keywords.

FastTurtle wrote:

On a related note, a system admin could create a standard set of packages for various departments and functions like dbserver, webserver, mailserver, proxysever, accounting, shipping/receiving and such. Once again, a company is more likely to buy into using linux if you can provide a standard set of packages.

Companies don't buy into things they won't use.

FastTurtle wrote:

What other reasons can you think of to use a package.set? Expand and explain your arguemnts in a paper with at least 5000 words folks and turn them in two weeks from now. Now that's worthy of the chat board.

I guess I've been off the grid since I didn't realize this happened, but seems like it could be pretty useful, esp. for updating. For a while I've been wishing for the ability to update, for example, only things relevant to system security (as opposed to the whole world) without having to cherrypick by hand.

(and maybe in future versions of portage do some set operations with them like intersecting or subtracting).

Actually set operators were implemented at some point in the early alphas. But for most typical cases it would require defining sets on the commandline, and the syntax for that is a bit complicated (if it still exists). And as they only operated on the text level (no atom overlap checks, virtual expansion or similar stuff) they were removed later on.